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Windows Browser Ballot Glitch Cost Firefox 6-9 Million Downloads
nk497 writes "Microsoft's failure to include the EU browser ballot in Windows 7 SP1 cost Mozilla as many as 9 million Firefox downloads, the organization's head of business affairs revealed. Harvey Anderson said daily downloads of Firefox fell by 63% to a low of 20,000 before the ballot was reinstated, and after the fix, downloads jumped by 150% to 50,000 a day. Over the 18 months the ballot was missing, that adds up to six to nine million downloads — although it's tough to tell if the difference has more to do with Chrome's success or the lack of advertising on Windows systems. The EU is currently investigating the 'glitch,' and Microsoft faces a massive fine for failing to include the screen, which offers download details for different browsers to European Windows users, as part of measures ordered by the EU to balance IE's dominance."
We're calculating lost downloads, now? And I thought lost sales due to piracy was a stupid metric...
As long as it's a monetary fine, M$ won't worry about it. If it's an actual, punative reaction the hire lawyers and drag it out for years while they go ahead with their scheme. Either way, they win.
How do you explain something like this? Would you think with all the people Microsoft has in their employ they would assign the duty of EU Compliance Checklist Monitor to someone?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Hah! If you believe it was a glitch, then I have a bridge to sell you. Noone in Microsoft noticed this issue for over a year? No QA process found this?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The "glitch" is a result of OEMs integrating the wrong version of service packs into their images.
When they integrate the non-EU version of a service pack then the image won't present the "ballot screen" to the user.
It's a good thing that they demand this of Microsoft. I mean, without setting this precedent, how else could we be offered the chance to freely and without jumping over hurdles obtain Firefox (or Chrome, for that matter) on our iPhones?
The iPhone is, in the US at least, at ~33% market share. Come back when they have a 80-90% and I (and the regulators) might start listening.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
I think it's some sort of demented, poorly-thought-out Time Cube parody.
So, does this mean that the only reason Firefox is getting those downloads, is because users are bored and pick a pretty icon from the list? :)
Cause even bing.com shows Firefox download page on the first page of "Firefox" query so I'm not sure I can believe in extra 50K people not being able to get Firefox if they want it.
I know users sometimes are not smart enough to find and download something, but this is ridiculous...
Hyperom.com
Because MS make more money from the EU market and sell more goods/services to it than anywhere else. Yes, that includes the US. You're second. Same as in a lot of IT markets. Hell, some of the gaming markets you're not even third.
You can piss them off if you like, but that's the LARGEST market they deal with. Same for Google, eBay and lots of other companies that deal internationally.
Ignore the fine and they seize your assets (i.e. freeze your bank accounts), which means zero effective business in that region. That's billions of Euros lost every year because you got stroppy and didn't pay a fine that you were legally required to pay.
Think that's fiction? They were >50% of your assets, sales and money (i.e. anything stored in the EU, or held by the EU, or sold to the EU) overnight is no small thing. And if you do business in the EU, you're liable to EU taxes and law (including fines) NO MATTER WHAT, so they'd literally just get other countries to take that from your bank account and pay it, no matter where you tried to hide it.
And, as it was, the US investigated this same matter and decided not to do anything. The EU investigated it and charged them billions. AND THEY PAID. Because it's the most incredibly stupid thing in the world not to. The EU literally have the power to say "No, you can't sell Windows" if they like.
It is relevant, because they ignored an order from the courts.
And the reason that IE isn't the most popular one in the EU is precisely because of said order.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
NO. Slashdot does not need to define every little thing that someone, somewhere might not understand. You're already on the internet, any questions can be answered with a few clicks. If nothing else, anyone with a descent IQ can figure out it's a way to choose a browser from the context. Anyone who has been on Slashdot would know Europe made Microsoft do this to try and keep Microsoft from leveraging Windows to get people to use Internet Explorer.
Because this is what Microsoft agreed to.
Its not a decision, its an agreement they entered into to avoid a trial and a resulting decision. Its quite possible that an actual decision, rather than a negotiated settlement, would have involved greater up-front cost but less in terms of long-term, ongoing restrictions. Microsoft made a choice that they'd rather have what they are now subject to than take the risk of the kind of fines and other up-front consequences at risk in a trial. That may or may not have been a bad decision in retrospect, but it was Microsoft's decision.
Presumably when Apple first has a monopoly in some market, and then illegally leverages that monopoly to gain power in an existing, separate market, and then makes a settlement agreement like Microsoft made to resolve the anti-trust charges over that leveraging, and then violates that agreement the way Microsoft did that is at issue here.
Because they themselves suggested it to the court. Both the idea and implementation of browser ballot were microsoft's own suggestions to the court.
And you don't know the difference between interpolation and extrapolation.
Extrapolation makes assumptions about future and they fail when something extraordinary happens in the future.
Interpolation makes assumptions about past - it's like assuming that missing numbers in 1 2 3 4 ... ... 7 8 9 should have been 5 and 6. Knowing that actual numbers there were 1 and 2 we can assume something out of ordinary happened. Like MS messing up the ballot, for example.